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Ethico-political
Governmentalit y
of Immigration
and Asylum
The Case
of Ethiopia
dil ek karal
Ethico-political Governmentality of Immigration
and Asylum
 Dilek Karal

Ethico-political
Governmentality
of Immigration
and Asylum
The Case of Ethiopia
Dilek Karal
Bir Dünya Çocuk Derneği
Gaziantep, Turkey

ISBN 978-3-030-00195-7    ISBN 978-3-030-00196-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00196-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958776

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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For my lovely family:
Erdem and Bahar
 Preface

At the beginning of this book, having immigration and asylum literature

in mind, our age’s international humanitarian response and political
approaches to mass displacement of people in the recent decades forced
me to reconsider power and liberal ethics in today’s policymaking when
human tragedy turned into an everyday reality. Liberal understanding of
equality had two consequences (the principle of double effect), differenti-
ating between obeying, deserving ones and the others. The refugee as the
stranger/outcast belonging to no nation did not have a solid place in this
picture. Instead of authentic solutions, policies developed normative
approach to refugee flows. I chose to develop my research on Ethiopia,
which was the biggest host in Africa during my three-year stay there
between 2012 and 2015. Although hosting thousands, the country had
such a small place in immigration and asylum literature. Unfortunately, I
also witnessed that my home country, Turkey, became the biggest host in
the world due to ongoing civil war in Syria—proving once more that
immigration and asylum is an issue crosscutting geographies and borders.
This book attempts to question the immigration and asylum policies
that were underlining the importance of teaching the refugee how to fish,
to feed him for a lifetime instead of giving him a fish. What is understated
in this formula is that the refugee was already in a stormy sea, fighting with
multiple issues falling apart from liberal ideal of democratic citizenship.
This was when humanity washed ashore a thousand times.

vii
viii PREFACE

This book is a modest call for reconsideration of today’s immigration

and asylum policies through the lenses of ethico-political governmentality.
With a reference to Baudrillard: I welcome you to the desert of real. This
is where we might recognize the simulacra of today’s policymaking.

Gaziantep, Turkey Dilek Karal

 Acknowledgments

This book is an outcome of my Ph.D. that I received from Middle East

Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. I would like to thank my advisor
Assist. Prof. Dr. Çağatay Topal for his encouragement, extensive contribu-
tion, and sincere support throughout writing process of this dissertation.
My major examining committee members Prof. Dr. Helga Rittersberger-­
Tılıç and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tahire Erman’s progressive feedbacks and time are
also much appreciated. I also want to thank my final committee members,
Prof. Dr. Ayhan Kaya and Assist. Prof. Dr. Besim Can Zırh. Special thanks
to Prof. Dr. Ayhan Kaya for encouraging me to publish my dissertation and
supporting me with an endorsement. Sincere thanks to Prof. Dr. Ertuğrul
Gündoğan for heartening me for academia when I was young and reckless.
Thanks to my friend Dr. Gülay Mutlu for her myriad efforts during publish-
ing of my dissertation. I also thank to my editor Mary Al-Sayed at Palgrave
Macmillan for her continuous help through the publishing process of this
book. Without their time and support, this book would not be written.
This book is an appreciation of the three beautiful years I spent in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia: Ameseginalehu! I would like to thank my friends from
Turkey, the United States, the UK, El Salvador, Mauritius, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, India, Sweden, Denmark, Luxemburg and the numerous African
countries that made an international life quite local for us. I will remember
fun, laughter, tears, love and oms and shantis exchanged between us. I also
want to thank my family and friends that they were there for me every time
I needed them. I will carry your love and inspiration everywhere I go.
Lastly, I appreciate my beloved husband Erdem for his tolerating love and
support in good times and in bad. I thank my lovely daughter Bahar for

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

being an infinite spring for us during the winter times of our lives. Love
makes everything easier.
Throughout my study, most of my respondents were Somali migrants—
refugees living in Addis Ababa. I sincerely thank their courage and contri-
bution to my work. Their tough experiences and resilience is worth
attention. Overall, this whole book is a humble attempt to make theirs and
other migrants’ voices heard in today’s noisy international debates.
 Contents

1 Introduction   1
1.1 Power, Governmentality and Ethico-Politics  6
1.2 Analytics of Governmentality 11
1.3 Notes on Methodology 13
References 16

2 Neoliberal Governmentality and Ethico-­politics of Power  19

2.1 Significance of Governmentality for Analysis of Global
Policymaking 20
2.2 Governmentality 24
2.3 From Disciplinary Power to Ethico-politics of Power 29
2.3.1 State of Justice and Sovereign Power 30
2.3.2 Administrative State and Disciplinary Power 31
2.3.3 Governmental State and Bio-politics 33
2.3.4 Neoliberal Governmentality, Technologies of Self
and Ethico-politics of Power 37
References 50

3 Ethico-political Governmentality of Global Immigration

and Asylum  53
3.1 Legal Developments on Immigration Policies in the World 54
3.1.1 Development of Laws on Asylum 57
3.1.2 Immigrant, Refugee, Asylum Seeker in Law and
Policy 63

xi
xii Contents

3.2 Problematization of Migration and Immigrants in Policy

Documents 66
3.2.1 Securitization of Migration as Technology of
Government 69
3.2.2 Liberal Responsibilization Paradigm in Policy 77
References 84

4 Ethiopia’s Legislation on Immigration and Asylum  89

4.1 Social History and Current Profile of Ethiopia 90
4.1.1 Ethiopia as a Strategic Ally of World Powers in the
Horn of Africa 92
4.1.2 Population Dynamics and Economic Transformation 95
4.1.3 Economy 97
4.2 Somali Migration to Ethiopia102
4.3 Ethiopia’s National Immigration and Refugee Legislation104
4.3.1 Responsibility Sharing in Implementation of Law
and Policy108
References109

5 Ethico-political Governmentality of Immigration and Asylum

in Ethiopia 113
5.1 Problematization of Africa and Ethiopia: Totalizing
Problems114
5.1.1 Problematization of Immigrants and Migration:
Dependency and Criminality Rhetoric117
5.1.2 Reflections of Multiple Problematizations in
Documents120
5.2 Immigration and Asylum in Ethiopia as a Governmental
Regime123
5.2.1 There Is No Refugee: Visible-Concealed Aspects of
Government123
5.2.2 Technologies of Exclusion: Ethiopian Doctors in
Chicago127
5.2.3 Government as Rational and Thoughtful Activity132
5.2.4 Formation of Identities: Responsibilizing the Agents
of Governmentality135
5.3 Construction of the Ethico-political Paradigm and Its
Reflections in Immigration and Asylum in Ethiopia147
References150
 Contents  xiii

6 Conclusion 153
6.1 Assessment of Ethico-politics Through Analytics of Power155
6.2 Governmentality of Immigration and Asylum in Ethiopia
as a Regime158
References166

Appendix 1: Methodological Appendix 167

Appendix 2: List of Reports Covered in Content Analysis 187

Appendix 3: Interview Questions for Undocumented Migrants  191

Appendix 4: Interview Questions for Organizations 195

Index 199
 Abbreviations

AfDB African Development Bank

AI Amnesty International
ARRA Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs
AU African Union
AUC African Union Commission
CEMSAD Community of Sahel-Saharan States
COMESA Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa
CSI Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency
EAMR East African Migration Route
EC European Commission
EIA Ethiopian Investment Agency
EMN European Migration Network
EP European Parliament
EU European Union
GFMD Global Forum on Migration and Development
HSDP Health Sector Development Programme
ICPD International Conference on Population and Development
ICRMW United Nations International Convention on the Protection
of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their
Families
IDPs Internally Displaced Persons
IFIs International Financial Institutions
IGAD International Authority on Development
IMF International Monetary Fund
IOM International Organization for Migration
IRO International Refugee Organization
JRS Jesuit Refugee Service

xv
xvi ABBREVIATIONS

MIDA Migration and Development in Africa

NGO Non-Governmental Organization
OAU Organization for African Unity
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
RMMS Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat
RPPs Regional Protection Programs
SAPs Structural Adjustment Programs
UN United Nations Development Program
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNHCR ExCom UNHCR Executive Committee
UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East
WHO World Health Organization
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Political map of Ethiopia. (https://d-maps.com/carte.php?num_

car=13800&lang=en)3
Fig. 2.1 Power diagram 44
Fig. 3.1 Word tree of “surveillance” in EU Commission reports 72
Fig. 4.1 A hotel in Addis Ababa with shanties behind. (Photo by Figen
Gündüz-Letaconnoux)98

xvii
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Major characteristics of ethico-political power 8

Table 1.2 Different steps of Dean’s analytics of government method 13
Table 2.1 Power economies and social power 30
Table 2.2 Evolution of liberal welfare regime (H. Dean 2006) 38
Table 3.1 International migrant stocks 2010 60
Table 5.1 Word frequency matrix of documents published by EU Comm.,
IOM and UNHCR 119
Table A.1 Organizations and report types 180

xix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

African1 countries hold a significant position in immigration and asylum

issues in the world, hosting more than 17.2 million documented immi-
grants and refugees (UNDP 2013). However, they are relatively under-
represented when current literature on immigration and asylum issues is
considered. Ferguson (2006) examines the problematization of Africa in
world politics and claims that although the huge continent is composed of
numerous cultures, states and languages, which create an extensive hetero-
geneity, the West approaches Africa in a totalistic manner. This perspective
characterizes Africa (especially sub-Saharan, black Africa) “by reference to
a series of lacks, failures, problems, and crises” (Ferguson 2006, p. 270).
Ferguson contends that definitive characteristic of Africa with “failure” by
laying behind what they “supposed to do” indeed refers to African coun-
tries’ failure to adopt worldwide capitalist restructuring (p. 280).
Similarly Mamdani (1996) rightfully points out that the common
approach to Africa falls under the binary contradiction of weather “exoti-
cizing” Africa, separating its realities from global dynamics, or “banaliz-
ing” it without appreciating the distinctive genuine characteristics of the
structural dynamics of the continent. African poverty, social issues and
push factors for immigration are described in a banal way. Their problems
are defamiliarized and these are separated from their structural dynamics
as well as the common socioeconomic problems in different parts of the
1
Unless otherwise stated Africa refers to sub-Saharan Africa throughout the book.

© The Author(s) 2019 1

D. Karal, Ethico-political Governmentality of Immigration and
Asylum, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00196-4_1
2 D. KARAL

world. African migrants’ poverty becomes a poverty that just belongs to

them, as if their illegality is a particular characteristic they inherit from
their geography. African migrant as “the agency” dissolve from the scene,
we only see him/her as victim or perpetrator of certain problems. This
inhuman approach results in differing policy propositions for the problems
of this part of the world (Fig. 1.1).
Ethiopia is not immune from this general perspective towards Africa. In
the literature, Ethiopia is mostly considered within the larger map of Africa
or in the Horn of Africa. International reports, in particular, approach the
country via its links, ties and shared problems with the rest of the conti-
nent, rather than singling out the historical structural or sociological
dynamics of the country. In this regard, the definitive characteristics of the
country that are detailed in such reports are poverty, inequality, degraded
status of women, the millions of forced migrants and undemocratic gov-
ernment. Of course, Ethiopia shares certain similar problems with other
African states; however, picturing Ethiopia merely via documented statis-
tics and top-down policy programs would be totally misleading in the
understanding of immigration and asylum issues in the country.
As of 2015, Ethiopia was the biggest host country in Africa, hosting
720 000 refugees as a result of ongoing conflicts in South Sudan and
Somali. Thousands reside in the country in prolonged situations as docu-
mented and undocumented migrants, along with small number of migrants
who are provided with official refugee status. As of 2014, Ethiopia was
host 645 356 documented migrants from Somali, South Sudan and Eritrea
(IOM 2014).2 Although being in the position of one of the largest hosts
in Africa, the country is underrepresented in immigration and asylum
studies literature sharing a similar faith with the rest of the continent.
This book aims to unearth how discourses and practices of the ethico-­
political paradigm are embedded and reproduced in global immigration
and asylum policy propositions regarding Ethiopia. The research draws
from governmentality studies literature (detailed in Chap. 2) to under-
stand the construction of ethico-political discourse and rationalities in
international documents issuing Ethiopia. I relied on Michel Foucault and
Gilles Deleuze in examining the genealogy of power. Mitchel Dean,

2
Numbers of undocumented migrants are not included. However, according to Somali
Community and Jesuit Refugee Service estimates there were 160,000 undocumented
Somalis residing in Addis Ababa and its surroundings in 2013 (Source: Interview with head
of Somali Community and Expert at Jesuit Refugee Service).
 INTRODUCTION
3

Fig. 1.1 Political map of Ethiopia. (https://d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=13800&lang=en)

4 D. KARAL

Nicolas Rose and Xavier Inda’s studies on the intertwining of power into
developing a critique on modern policymaking processes constituted my
roadmaps. Furthering this tradition, Susan Greenhalgh’s research on
China’s one-child policy and Barbara Cruikshank’s study on democratic
citizens and other subjects were inspiring to me as examples of directed
content analysis. Having these studies in mind, ongoing developments on
management of immigration and asylum and international political reac-
tions to migrant crises in the recent decades forced me reconsider the liberal
approach in today’s policymaking. In the present age, international human-
itarian response and political approaches to mass displacement of people
surely need multiple inquiries when human tragedy turned into an everyday
reality. Today, international migration has shifted into a human tragedy.
When I examined the development of immigration and asylum policies,
it became apparent that the evolution of policies in this specific field is in
line with the transformation of the understanding of social security and
welfare. The rise of the post-social state and the democratic state’s increas-
ing emphasis on ethical paradigms in policymaking is noteworthy.
Advanced liberal policymaking strategies promoted self-governance to
replace welfare commitments of previous decades. The rise of the post-­
social state and emphasis on self-responsibility became the defining char-
acteristics of today’s social policies. Transformation of social security and
welfare into a self-responsibility paradigm is significant in understanding
why post-social/advanced liberal states place an ethical paradigm into
policymaking. This perspective affected numerous areas and policymaking
strategies from education to crime control. Social policies in different
fields put more responsibility on the individual and the community, espe-
cially in “problematic” areas like immigration and asylum. Resonating this
responsibilization paradigm I argue that immigration and asylum policies
called on individual migrants and migrant communities to be active, self-­
governing and self-helping, justifying these characteristics as a prerequisite
for humanitarian support.
At this point the question of power intertwined with the question of eth-
ics for me. In this regard, the book started with two overarching assumptions
that are sourced from governmentality studies literature. First, the liberal
understanding of equality had two consequences (the principle of double
effect), differentiating between obeying, deserving ones and the others. The
refugee as the stateless stranger or outcast did not have a solid place in this
picture. In calculating a refugee’s possible contribution to the host society,
selecting, numbering and lining them up was “normal,” since no one holds
 INTRODUCTION 5

responsibility for the ongoing tragedy of mass displacement. Instead of

authentic solutions, policies developed a normative approach to refugee
flows. Intermingling of ethics with politics is not a genuine perspective.
On the other hand, such a clear application of this perspective as a human-
itarian response tool is questionable. And whose ethical perspective are
these policies proposing? References to this ethical perspective present in
social policies is again subject to examination. As stated in the common
proverb, immigration and asylum policies were underlining the impor-
tance of teaching a refugee how to fish to feed himself for a lifetime instead
of just giving him a fish. What is understated in this formula is that the
refugee was already in a stormy sea, fighting with multiple issues falling
apart from liberal ideal of democratic citizenship.
Teaching people to fish instead of giving them the fish philosophy
sounds necessary and innocent within our understanding of modern wel-
fare systems and perception of democratic citizenship. However, when
migrants’ degraded or vague social and legal status in the host countries is
considered, self-help mentality becomes nothing more than an abandon-
ment policy or justification for drawbacks in international humanitarian
mechanisms. Migrants or refugees (as other vulnerable groups in modern
society, such as poor, criminal, or dependent) are expected to contribute
wholeheartedly to all policies in order to receive the utmost benefit from
humanitarian mechanisms. Policies push them to be self-governing, self-­
helping individuals and from time to time do not hesitate to define them
as “agents of development”. Modern aid systems expect them to help each
other, take active roles in community and continue their traditional in-­
community roles, such as caregiving for kids and the elderly, supporting
each other financially, and undertaking gender-based roles. Since this par-
adigm targets immigrants as the sole responsible agents, they became the
ones to point at in times of failure. This book exemplifies how these roles
are designated in global policy papers and how migrants are stigmatized
when they fail to meet their designated roles as “agents of development”.
Following this argument, I initiated an examination of the construction of
this normative ideal in policy propositions. My second central argument
emerged: ethico-political power arose as the prevalent form of power in neo-
liberal welfare regimes, along with the society of control, especially after the
1980s. As a background to discussions provided, the book provides a map of
the genealogy of power along with the relationship between social and eco-
nomic transformations and different modes of power (See Chap. 2). This
genealogy confirms that ethico-political power is closely related to transfor-
6 D. KARAL

mation of liberal welfare regimes and societies. Ethico-­political power pro-

vided the discursive and technical tools as well as norms and strategies in line
with expectation and needs of neoliberal welfare regimes. However, follow-
ing the genealogical line of power revealed that ethico-political power is not
only a discursive and ideological concept; it carries technical and institutional
characteristics arising out of historical social and economic stages.
From these discussions, this book aims to focus on two major ques-
tions: How is an ethico-political paradigm constructed within global pol-
icy propositions for Ethiopia? What are the reflections of an ethico-political
paradigm in the governmentality of immigration and asylum in Ethiopia?
Additionally, I argue that ethico-political power is constructed in global
policy propositions for Ethiopian immigration and asylum issues via visi-
ble, technical, rational, and identity formative aspects. Carrying both ethi-
cal and political characteristics, ethico-political power might be understood
as a central power limited to discursive tools. However, the book presents
that ethico-political power is diffused into minor fields via its technical,
rational and idealistic tools and facets. That is also what makes govern-
mentality different from governance. Governmentality is diffused, perme-
ated and implemented via visible, technical, rational and identity formative
tools. It targets mentality as well as governance. Remoralizing individuals
and other actors ethico-politics conducts continuous control. Government
multiplies in this ethical agenda and control mechanisms diffuse.
Before detailing this book’s central concepts, such as governmentality
and ethico-political power, I should first briefly touch upon the very defin-
itive concept of power that lies behind the structure of my research. It is
also necessary to briefly describe the evolution of the discussion on power
throughout the chapters of the book, as well as where this book is situated
in the huge literature on power.

1.1   Power, Governmentality and Ethico-Politics

Question of policymaking truly and directly relates to authority and to
power. If we are talking about a certain type of governance that is propos-
ing definite policies for a demarcated population to reach certain ends, we
are certainly talking about power that is possessed by, claimed for or used
over certain actors/collectives/systems. The debate on power, as one of
the main discussions in the field of sociology, gives place to its dynamics
and mechanisms through which power penetrates into, rules over and is
internalized by society and the individual.
 INTRODUCTION 7

First of all, as one of the earlier comprehensive definitions of power,

Weber evaluated power as one’s capacity to realize its will over others with
or without their consent (Weber et al. 1978). Hence for Weber, power is
characterized with authority, legitimate orders and mechanisms through
which this authority realizes its will over others.
To refer diverse analyses on the relationship between power and knowl-
edge, Marx and Nietzsche also provided significant points. While Marx
claimed that the prevalent ideas of the age are always the ideas of the rul-
ing class, Nietzsche commented on the relationship between power and
knowledge in his work, On the Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche claimed
that even the formation and creation of ideas of “good” and “bad”
depends on the continuous power and domination of the rulers and higher
classes in the society (Nietzsche 1887). In this sense, while nobility, beauty
and honor are assigned to the higher classes, the large masses are accepted
as inferior and “bad” in this discourse formation, which is basically depen-
dent on power.
Later on, philosophers Stephen Lukes and Antonio Gramsci separated
power from the coercion context and underlined the importance of con-
sent for any authority to have certain power over people. Lukes defined
the power as a right, while Gramsci pointed out the necessity of collective
consent in any hegemonic setting (Lukes 1974). Both discussions paved a
philosophical path for possibilities of resistance. If power was a right and
derived from collective consent, it was also possible for the population to
obtain power before the hegemon. Additionally, people hold the power of
consent according to this formula.
Similarly, Foucault rightfully approaches the subject with the possibility
for confrontation strategies opening a path of discussion for resistance
defining power as strategy in his work The Subject and Power (Foucault
1982). For Foucault, history of power presents a history of “objectifying
practices” over individuals. Explaining his objective in The Subject and
Power as “to create a history of different modes by which, in our culture,
human beings are made subjects” Foucault defines three modes of objec-
tification (1982). In this schema, the first mode is “dividing subjectivi-
ties”, the second mode is “scientific classification” and the third mode is
defined as “subjectification” (Foucault 1984, pp. 7–11). These concepts
are broken down and developed in his works Madness and Civilization
(1998), Birth of Clinic (1973) and later Discipline and Punish (1977).
All three modes of objectification of individuals can be observed in the
social history of societies. Moreover, these three modes, which divide,
8 D. KARAL

measure and subjectify can also be observed in a constitution of rules,

norms or policies. First, by way of dividing practices, normal, expected,
efficient members and “others” are defined. In tandem with this prelimi-
nary discursive limitation, second, expertise and scientific generalizations
are introduced into classification. This process, in which knowledge is
brought into play, produces statistics and expertise to create a control
mechanism for populations. While defining extent and capacity, expertise
can produce generalizable outcomes for populations. Third, subjectifica-
tion creates self-formation and responsible individuals who can control
themselves. Creation of individuals as self-manageable subjects helps sys-
tems of government diffuse their power to micro-locales. While individu-
als control themselves for the sake of following an idealized path defined
by dividing practices and expertise, their contribution to the well-being of
the system is encouraged continuously.
Nicolas Rose and Mitchell Dean proposed a concept of ethico-political
power as a follow-up to Foucault’s differing modes of power that are prev-
alent in different societal types. Ethico-political power follows the tradi-
tion of subjectification that was defined earlier by Foucault. Studies on
governmentality have problematized the construction of an ­ethico-­political
paradigm in modern day policymaking as a means to create responsibiliz-
ing, collectivizing and socializing power (Rose 1999) (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Major characteristics of ethico-political power

Ethico-political power
Popularizing and socializing power
Emphasis on responsibility and self-government
Ethico-political continuous control of the self (Remoralizing individuals for continuous
self-control)
Multiplicity of government
Entrepreneurialism (individuals are continuous producers-investment in human capital to
Return on investment (e.g. monetary, psychic))
Individuals and organizations as competitors
Calculated management of life
Individual risk-taking
Post-social (or advanced liberal) rationalities and technologies of government
Technologies of exclusion via dividing practices
Selective focus on individual and community

This table is prepared out of Nicholas Rose, Mitchell Dean, and Jonath Xavier Inda’s discussions on the
issue. Some categories are defined in Inda’s (2006) study. Chapter 2 includes a detailed discussion on
genealogy of power and ethico-political power
 INTRODUCTION 9

Ethico-political power is popularizing and responsibilizing power that

has been effective at different levels of policymaking in neoliberal states.
Ethico-political power situates society, community and self-responsibility
at the center of policymaking to moderate populations. Ethico-political
power aims to shift the burden of states in welfare provision to individuals
and communities, especially on problematic issues such as immigration,
crime, illness, and security control. As Nikolas Rose stated, as rationalities
and technologies of government evolved, the emphasis on responsibility
of individuals increased (2006).3 As an extension of the relationship
between mode of production and mode of power, neoliberal governmen-
tality entails ethico-political power as a part of its larger political economic
and policymaking strategy. While early liberal states are characterized by
disciplinary or bio-political power, neoliberal states require the inaugura-
tion of additional ethico-political tools and norms into social policymak-
ing processes. This individualizing and socializing power determines the
patterns of social policymaking (Rose 1999). Upon presumed transition
from a disciplinary society to control society, ethico-political power is the
modern power that shapes extent and effect of governmentality through
technologies of power and technologies of self (Rose 1999).
In his recent work, The Signature of Power, Mitchell Dean furthers dis-
cussion of power beyond governmentality, referring to Agamben’s discus-
sion of the concept and signature. He introduces a more inclusive concept
of signature of power that represents a dipolar conception of power. Power
is analyzed as “both ‘power to’ and ‘power over’, capacity and right, facili-
tative and repressive, law and violence, episodic and dispositional, sover-
eign and economic, being and action and ultimately reign and government”
(Dean 2012, p. 114).

The signature of power refers us not simply to how power comes into being,
or how it is assembled, but to how it is used and blocked, furthered and
resisted. To approach power through its signature, through what marks it
and prevents it being limited to a particular signified or referent, we need to
register its apparent dichotomies and replace them with what might be called
a ‘di-polar’ conception of power relations. One way of expressing this would

3
For further reading on Nikolas Rose’s discussion on power and subjectivity, see The
Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the 21st Century (2006). For
further reading on development of the concept of ethico-politics and discussions on govern-
mentality, see Nikolas Rose’s Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (1999).
10 D. KARAL

be to say that we must suspend the oppositional character of our polarities,

without neutralising either side, and approach power as a force field in which
these polarities attract and repel one another. (Dean 2012, p. 108)

Further, Dean refers to Agamben’s economy of theology and the method

he follows as a path to understanding the signature of power. He refers to
anthropological analysis, deciphering symbols associated with states and
political actors, since “they are no longer the archaic media of power but
their concrete, material, substantial historical manifestations that carry sig-
natures of power” (Dean 2012, p. 114). Through his conceptualization,
Dean claims to reintroduce the actor into power’s force field without under-
emphasizing its role in the praxis. Dipolar conception of power argues that
polarities attract and repel each other instead of clash, as previously discussed
at large. This opens up considerable opportunity for resistance discussions.
Overall, the theoretical framework and power approach of the book
stands closer to Foucault’s earlier methodological perspective, genealogy,
focusing more on the relationship between discourse, power and knowl-
edge as well as the question of “how power functions” (Foucault 1998).
Within this sense, what I am intending to share throughout the chapters
of the book is to define and underline how a certain type of power is con-
structed and implemented in global policy propositions for Ethiopia. In
addition, how this power designates identities, tailors responsibilities, and
idealizes certain ends within a specific context.
Although personally, as a researcher, I am not adhering any centrality,
either to governmental power produced in policy propositions of interna-
tional organization, or the power that is present in any conduct of immigra-
tion and asylum regime. On the contrary, I claim that ethico-political power
and its conduct in the form of assemblages and institutions function via
micro-local interventions to individual and community. As defined earlier
by Nikolas Rose, the individual is assigned sole responsibility for the right
to life and the right to death by an ethico-political power (Rose 2006).
This book looks at the genealogical as well as interpretivist techniques
decoding latent power relations/forces. In this regard, discourses, tech-
niques and technologies of actors and self are analyzed both as a medium and
a tool for subjectifying practices. In conclusion, this book is not intending to
contribute to the alternative resistance studies. On the contrary, I claim that
seemly individualized and communalized power does not strengthen strate-
gies of resistance mechanisms; instead, it targets supporting self-­
responsibilization of the migrants for their own lives. The book contends
 INTRODUCTION 11

that individualization and collectivization of power intensifies the ethico-­

politic perspective’s negative effects, designating certain directions for
migrants’ everyday lives that will be discussed through the following chap-
ters. Although the book is structurally critical in pointing out the definitions,
problematizations, identity formative, discriminative and technological
aspects of the ethico-political power, resistance discussion generally, as one of
the major critiques of governmentality, is beyond the scope of this book.

1.2   Analytics of Governmentality

Governmentality theory proposes that ethico-political power has been
effective in global policymaking processes and social security systems,
especially after the 1980s, as a part of the neoliberal restructuring process.
Governmentality studies literature highlights that changes in power econ-
omies in the West results in changes in policy-making discourse, strategy,
processes, and practices. Apart from being a composite political rationality
that arose out of multiple global transformations such as globalization,
capitalism and changes in industrialism, ethico-political governmentality
intrinsically carries technological dimensions in monitoring and control-
ling migration. The actual mechanism and technical aspects provide a
technological characteristic for governmentality of migration, such as bor-
der structure, security forces’ approach, pamphlets, statistics and policy
reports as well as institutional capacities. These different facets help to
provide a concrete base for abstract political mentalities, which makes
“problematic” aspects of migration “visible” (Inda 2006, p. 8).
Straehle (2007) argues that modern global immigration and asylum poli-
cies differentiate between “desirable” and “undesirable” migrants in a con-
tradictory manner to “individual autonomy and equality of opportunity”.
In line with this argument, I agree that contemporary liberal democratic
societies employ immigration and asylum policies in a mostly arbitrary and
selective manner. Contrasting with the idea of liberal democracy and social
justice, these policies are morally hard to defend (Straehle 2007). Global
immigration and asylum policies facilitate a huge network of policymaking
and governmentality from global organizations to local governments that
make application of policy easier. However, when we direct a macro gaze to
policies, this arbitrary enactment of the immigration and asylum policies
differ regionally and even country-to-country. There are huge policy differ-
ences; vague definitions of migrants’ human rights between the Western
democracies and other parts of the world that have been ignored for years.
12 D. KARAL

In the light of previously discussed theoretical “technologies of self”

paradigm, this research initiates the application of a technique specific to
governmentality studies titled “analytics of government.” Analytics of
government deals with “the conditions under which regimes of practices
come into being, are maintained and transformed” (Dean 1999, p. 21).4
Dean (1999) describes the characteristics of regimes of practices before
introducing “analytics of government”:

In contemporary liberal-democratic societies, there are regimes of practices

of punishing, of curing, of relieving poverty, of treating mental illness, and
maintaining mental health and so on. These regimes involve and link up
particular institutions so that we can talk of a ‘criminal justice system’. A
‘health system’, a ‘social welfare system’ and so on. (Dean 1999, p. 21)

Dean (1999) argues that systematic and stable correlation of visibilities,

mentalities, technologies and agencies presents “regime of practice.” In
this regard, analytics governmentality of these regimes of practices aims to
define:

Emergence of that regime, examine the multiple sources of the elements

that constitute it, and follow the diverse processes and relations by which
these elements are assembled into relatively stable forms of organization and
institutional practice. (Dean 1999, p. 21)

Focusing on the leading research patterns in governmentality studies,

Dean details diverse preliminary steps of analytics of government. These
stages are as follows: The identification of problematizations, the priority
given to how questions, practices of government as assemblages or regimes, the
extraction of the utopian element of government, the circumspection about
the role of values, the avoidance of global or radical positions. Analyzing the
practices of government as assemblages or regimes includes the following
steps: the examination of fields of visibility of government, the concern for the
technical aspect of government, the approach to government as rational and
thoughtful activity, attention to the formation of identities (Table 1.2).

4
Analytics of a particular regime of practices, at a minimum, seeks to identify the emer-
gence of that regime, examine the multiple sources of the elements that constitute it, and
follow the diverse processes and relations by which these elements are assembled into rela-
tively stable forms of organization and institutional practice. It examines how such a regime
gives rise to and depends upon particular forms of knowledge and how, as a consequence of
this, it becomes the target of various programs of reform and change (Dean 1999, p. 21).
 INTRODUCTION 13

Table 1.2 Different steps of Dean’s analytics of government method

The identification of problematizations

The priority given to “how” questions
Practices of government as assemblages or regimes
 The examination of fields of visibility of government
 The concern for the technical aspect of government
 The approach to government as rational and thoughtful activity
 Attention to the formation of identities
The extraction of the utopian element of government
The circumspection about the role of values
The avoidance of global or radical positions

The analytics of government method is proposed by Dean to recon-

sider relatively complex issues regarding examination of governmentality
of a certain conduct. Issues of norms and values, rationality, technical
aspects and formation of identities are put into different levels of analysis
to provide a more detailed study of how regimes function, reason or rule.
Among these different steps of analyzing any governmental conduct, this
study tries to reveal normative and ethico-political positions, technologies
and identities proposed by today’s immigration and asylum regime.5

1.3   Notes on Methodology

While developing abstract conclusions about general policymaking pro-
cesses would be hypothetical to some extent, it is still significant and self-­
evident to understand the “complex interconnection with multiplicity of
historical processes” as a methodological preference (Foucault 1998,
p. 75). Departing from such a paradigm, this study is built upon interpre-
tivist and genealogical approaches to social sciences. Interpretive sociology
aims to uncover meanings and present a descriptive analysis of the percep-
tions of actors (Neuman 2000). Interpretive sociology deals more with
analytical descriptions than critiques of the certain processes. That is why
collaboration of an interpretive approach with genealogy and analytics of
governmentality would be helpful to analyze “how” certain regimes of
government operationalize their diverse type of power, which is trans-
forming, subjectifying or internalizing.

5
Please find a detailed discussion on the diverse steps of analytics of government and their
relevance to study of immigration and asylum studies in methodological appendix.
Another random document with
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esteem for his self-contempt; divine goodness and beauty to call
forth the passion of love and loyalty that is in him; the Story of the
Cross, the lifting up, which perhaps no human soul is able to resist if
it be fitly put. And the divine idea once received, the divine life is
imparted also, grows, is fostered and cherished by the Holy Ghost.
The man is a new creature, with other aims, and other thoughts, and
a life out of himself. The old things have passed away, and all things
have become new—the physical being embodying, so to speak, the
new life of the spirit.
We may well believe, indeed, that “conversion” is so proper to the
physical and spiritual constitution of man that it is inevitable to all of
us if only the ideas summed up in Christ be fitly introduced to the
soul.
The question then turns, not upon the possibility of converting the
most depraved, nor upon the potency of the ideas to be presented,
but altogether upon the power of putting these ideas so that a man
shall recognise and seize upon the fulness of Christ as the
necessary complement to the emptiness of which he is aware.

the habits of the good life.

But, the man converted, the work is not done. These sinners
exceedingly are not only sinful, but diseased; morbid conditions of
brain have been set up, and every one of them needs individual
treatment, like any other sick man, for disease slow of cure. For a
month, three months, six months, it will not do to let one of them
alone. Curative treatment is an absolute condition of success, and
here is where human co-operation is invited in what is primarily and
ultimately the work of God. There are diseased places in the brain,
where ill thoughts have of old run their course; and these sore places
must have time, blessed time, wherein to heal. That is to say, all
traffic in the old thoughts must be absolutely stopped, at whatever
cost.
Think of the Army of Vigilance which must be ever on the alert to
turn away the eyes of the patients from beholding evil; for, a single
suggestion, of drink, of uncleanness, and, presto, the old thoughts
run riot, and the work of healing must be begun anew. And, how to
keep out the old, but by administering the thoughts of the new life
watchfully, one by one, as they are needed, and can be taken;
offering them with engaging freshness, with comforting fitness, until
at last the period of anxious nursing is over, the habits of the good
life are set up, and the patient is able to stand on his own feet and
labour for his own meat. This is no work to be undertaken wholesale.
The spiritual care of a multitude diseased, even physically diseased,
of sin, is no light thing. And if it be not undertaken systematically, and
carried out efficiently, the whole scheme must of necessity fall
through. Who is sufficient for these things? No one, perhaps; but a
following of a great corps of nurses trained to minister to minds
diseased, and with the experience and the method belonging to a
professional calling, is surely, a fitting qualification for the Herculean
task.

the ease of discipline.

How readily we can understand how, in the days when monarchs
were more despotic than they are now, one and another would take
refuge in a convent for the ease of doing the will of another rather
than his own! Is not this the attraction of conventual life to-day, and is
not this why the idea of the Salvation Army is powerfully attractive to
some of us who know, all the same, that we (individually) should be
wrong to lay down our proper function of ordering and acting out our
own lives. But for these, strong of impulse and weak of will, who
have no power at all to do the good they vaguely and feebly desire,
oh, the ease of being taken up into a strong and beneficent
organisation, of having their comings and goings, their doings and
havings, ordered for them! Organisation, regimentation, we are
reminded, make a hero of Tommy Atkins. And these all have it in
them to be heroes, because, restlessness, rebellion, once subdued,
they will rejoice more than any others in the ease of simply doing as
they are bidden. Here is a great secret of power, to treat these,
lapsed and restored, like children; for what is the object of family
discipline, of that obedience which has been described as “the whole
duty of a child”? Is it not to ease the way of the child, while will is
weak and conscience immature, by setting it on the habits of the
good life where it is as easy to go right as for a locomotive to run on
its lines? Just such present relief from responsibility, such an interval
for development, do these poor children of larger growth demand for
their needs; and any existing possibility of ordering and disciplining
this mixed multitude must needs appear to us a surpassing
adaptation of “supply” to “demand.”
The saving grace of work, and the healing power of the fresh air,
again, should do their part in the restoration of the “submerged.” But
it is not our part to examine the methods proposed by General
Booth, or to adumbrate his chances of success. Our concern is
solely with the children. No doubt this great social scheme has been
discussed, more or less, in every family, and the attitude of thought
towards all good work which the children will henceforth take may
depend very much upon how far the underlying principles are made
clear to them in one such typical instance. Whatever the agency, let
the children be assured that the work is the work of God, to be
accomplished in the strength of God, according to the laws of God;
that it is our part to make ourselves acquainted with the laws we
would work out, and that, having done all, we wait for the inspiration
of the divine life, even as the diligent farmer waits upon sunshine
and shower.

FOOTNOTES:
[14] Issue of Darkest England.
 CHAPTER XVI

DISCIPLINE
What part does Discipline play in your system of education? We
should hail the query as manifesting a cheering degree of interest if
we were not quite sure that our interlocutor uses discipline as a
euphuism for punishment. That conviction puts one’s mind into the
attitude of protest. In the first place, we have no system of education.
We hold that great things, such as nature, life, education are
“cabined, cribbed, confined” in proportion as they are systematised.
We have a method of education, it is true, but method is no more
than a way to an end and is free, yielding, adaptive as Nature
herself. Method has a few comprehensive laws according to which
details shape themselves, as one naturally shapes one’s behaviour
to the acknowledged law that fire burns. System, on the contrary,
has an infinity of rules and instructions as to what you are to do and
how you are to do it. Method in education follows Nature humbly,
stands aside and gives her fair play.
System leads Nature: assists, supplements, rushes in to
undertake those very tasks which Nature has made her own since
the world was. Does Nature endow every young thing, child or kitten,
with a wonderful capacity for inventive play? Nay, but, says System, I
can help here; I will invent games for the child and help his plays,
and make more use of this power of his than unaided Nature knows
how. So Dame System teaches the child to play, and he enjoys it;
but, alas, there is no play in him, no initiative, when he is left to
himself; and so on all along the lines. System is fussy and zealous
and produces enormous results—in the teacher! Method pursues a
“wise passiveness.” You watch the teacher and are hardly aware that
he is doing anything. The children take the initiative, but, somehow,
the result here is in these and not in the teacher. They develop,
become daily more and more of persons, with
“The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill.”

Such as these are the golden fruits which ripen under the eyes of the
parent who is wise to discriminate between the rôle of nature and
that of the educator, who follows sympathetically and dutifully the
lead of the great mother.
“Oh, then you have no discipline. I thought not. I daresay it would
answer very well to leave children to themselves and make them
happy. Children are always good when they are happy, are they
not?” Not so fast, dear reader. He who would follow a great leader
must needs endeavour himself, Ohne Hast ohne Rast, and the
divine lead which we call Nature is infinitely blessed in the following,
but steep to tread and hard to find and by no means to be
confounded with leisurely strolling in ways of our own devising.
The parent who would educate his children, in any large sense of
the word, must lay himself out for high thinking and lowly living; the
highest thinking indeed possible to the human mind and the
simplest, directest living.
This thought of discipline, for example, is one of the large
comprehensive ideas which must inform and direct the life, rather
than be gathered up into a rule, easy to remember and easy to
apply, when, now and then, comes the occasion for it. If Tommy is
naughty, whip him and send him to bed—is a ready-reckoner kind of
rule, handy to have about one, and is the sort of thing which many
people mean by discipline. Now we would not say that punishment is
never to be used, very much otherwise. Neither would we say that
physic is never to be taken. But punishment, like physic, is a
casualty only of occasional occurrence at the worst, and punishment
and physic alike are reduced to a minimum in proportion as we
secure healthy conditions of body and mind. We are not anxious to
lay down canons for punishment. Mr. Herbert Spencer has not
perhaps said the last word, but he has given us a quite convenient
rule to go on with. A child should be punished by the natural
consequences of his offence. To carry this suggestion out au pied de
la lettre would often enough mean lasting, even fatal injury to the
child, bodily and mental. You cannot let the indolent child be
punished by ignorance, or the wilful and adventurous child break his
limb; but, so far as punishments have been allowed to become
necessary, the nature of the offence gives one a clue to a suitable
punishment. The child who does not eat his porridge goes without
his plum. This is, anyway, a punishment in kind, perhaps the nearest
approach to natural consequences which it is advisable to try.
But parents should face the fact that children rather enjoy
punishments. In these they find the opportunities, so frequent is
story-books, so rare in real life, for showing a fine pluck. The child
who is in punishment is very commonly enjoying himself immensely,
because he is respecting himself intensely. There is a bit of heroism
in the bearing of the penalty which is very apt to do away with any
sense of contrition for the offence, and the plucky little fellow, who
takes his punishment with an air, is by no means a bad and
hardened young offender, but is an economist of opportunities,
making the best of what comes to hand for his own real education.
His mother’s distress, his father’s disapproval, these are quite
different matters, and carry no compensating sense of hardihood.
Reflections like these lead one to spare the rod, not at all out of over
sensibility to the child’s physical suffering, for we would have him
endure hardness if we mean to make a man of him, but purely
because it is not easy to find a punishment that does not defeat its
own end.
The light smart slap, with which the mother visits the little child
when he is naughty, is often both effective and educative. It changes
the current of baby’s thoughts, and he no longer wishes to pull his
sister’s hair. But should not the slap be a last resort when no other
way is left of changing his thoughts? With the older child a theory of
punishments rests less upon the necessity to change the culprit’s
thoughts than upon the hope of forming a new association of ideas,
that is, of certain pains and penalties inevitably attached to certain
forms of wrong-doing. This, we know too well, is a teaching of life,
and is not to be overlooked in education. The experience of each of
us goes to prove that every breach of law, in thought or deed, is
attended by its own penalties, immediate or remote, and the child
who is not brought up to know that “due follows deed in course,” is
sent out to his first campaign undrilled and untrained, a raw recruit.
Our contention is (a), that the need for punishment is mostly
preventable, and (b), that the fear of punishment is hardly ever so
strong a motive as the delight of the particular wrong-doing in view. If
punishment were necessarily reformative and able to cure us all of
those “sins we have a mind to,” why, the world would be a very good
world, for no manner of sin escapes its present punishment. The fact
is, not that punishment is unnecessary or that it is useless, but that it
is inadequate and barely touches our aim; which is, not the visitation
of the offence, but the correction of that fault of character of which
the offence is the outcome. Jemmy tells lies and we punish him, and
by so doing we mark our sense of the offence; but, probably, no
punishment could be invented drastic enough to cure Jemmy of
telling lies in the future, and this is the thing to be aimed at. No, we
must look deeper; we must find out what weak place in character,
what false habit of thinking, leads Jemmy to tell lies, and we must
deal with this false habit in the only possible way, by forming the
contrary habit of true thinking, which will make Jemmy grow up a
true man. “I think I have never told a lie since,” said a lady,
describing the single conversation in which her father cured her of
lying by setting up an altogether new train of thought.
Not mere spurts of occasional punishment, but the incessant
watchfulness and endeavour which go to the forming and preserving
of the habits of the good life, is what we mean by discipline, and from
this point of view never were there such disciplinarians as the
parents who labour on the lines we indicate. Every habit of courtesy,
consideration, order, neatness, punctuality, truthfulness, is itself a
schoolmaster, and orders life with the most unfailing diligence.
A habit is so easily formed, so strong to compel. There are few
parents who would not labour diligently if for every month’s labour
they were able to endow one of their children with £1000. But, in a
month, a parent may form a habit in his child of such infinite value
that your thousand pounds is a mere bagatelle by comparison. We
have often urged that the great discovery which modern science has
brought to the aid of the educator is, that every habit of the life sets
up, as it were, a material record in the brain tissues. We all know that
we think as we are used to think and act as we are used to act. Ever
since man began to notice the ways of his own mind this law of habit
has been matter of common knowledge, and has been more or less
acted upon by parents and other trainers of children. The well
brought-up child has always been a child carefully trained in good
habits. But it is only within our own day that it has been possible to
lay down definite laws for the formation of habits. Until now, the
mother who wished to train her children in such and such a good
habit has found herself hindered by a certain sense of casualty. “I am
sure I am always telling her”—to keep her drawers neat, or to hold
up her head and speak nicely, or to be quick and careful about an
errand,—says the poor mother, with tears in her eyes; and indeed
this, of “always telling” him or her is a weary process for the mother;
dull, because hopeless. She goes on “telling” to deliver her own soul,
for she has long since ceased to expect any result; and we know
how dreary is work without hope. But, perhaps even his mother does
not know how unutterably dreary is this “always telling,” which
produces nothing, to the child. At first he is fretful and impatient
under the patter of idle words; then he puts up with the inevitable,
but comes at last hardly to be aware that the thing is being said. As
for any impression on his character, any habit really formed, all this
labour is without result; the child does the thing when he cannot help
it and evades as often as he can. And the poor disappointed mother
says, “I’m sure I’ve tried as much as any mother to train my children
in good habits, but I have failed.” She is not altogether dispirited,
however. The children have not the habits she wished to train them
in, but they grow up warm-hearted, good-natured, bright young
people, by no means children to be ashamed of. All the same, the
mother’s sense of failure is a monition to be trusted. Our failures in
life are, perhaps, due, for the most part, to the defects of our
qualities, and, therefore, it is not enough to send children into the
world with just the inheritance of character they get from their
parents.
 Let us offer a few definite practical counsels to a parent who
wishes to deal seriously with a bad habit. First.—Let us remember
that this bad habit has made its record in the brain. Second.—There
is one way only of obliterating such record; the absolute cessation of
the habit for a considerable space of time, say, some six or eight
weeks. Third.—During this interval new growth, new cell
connections, are somehow or other taking place, and the physical
seat of the evil is undergoing a natural healing. Fourth.—But the only
way to secure this pause is to introduce some new habit as attractive
to the child as is the wrong habit you set yourself to cure. Fifth.—As
the bad habit usually arises from the defect of some quality in the
child it should not be difficult for the parent who knows his child’s
character to introduce the contrary good habit. Sixth.—Take a
moment of happy confidence between parent and child; introduce,
by tale or example, the stimulating idea; get the child’s will with you.
Seventh.—Do not tell him to do the new thing, but quietly and
cheerfully see that he does it on all possible occasions, for weeks if
need be, all the time stimulating the new idea, until it takes great
hold of the child’s imagination. Eighth.—Watch most carefully against
any recurrence of the bad habit. Ninth.—Should the old fault recur,
do not condone it. Let the punishment, chiefly the sense of your
estrangement, be acutely felt. Let the child feel the shame of not only
having done wrong, but of having done the wrong when it was
perfectly easy to avoid the wrong and do the right. Above all “watch
unto prayer” and teach your child dependence upon divine aid in this
warfare of the spirit; but also, the absolute necessity for his own
efforts.
Susie is an inquisitive little girl. Her mother is surprised and not
always delighted to find that the little maid is constantly on voyages
of discovery, which the servants speak of to each other as prying
and poking. Is her mother engaged in talk with a visitor or the nurse
—behold, Susie is at her side, sprung from nobody knows where. Is
a confidential letter being read aloud—Susie is within earshot. Does
the mother think she has put away a certain book where the children
cannot find it—Susie volunteers to produce it. Does she tell her
husband that cook has asked for two days leave of absence—up
jumps Susie, with all the ins and outs of the case. “I really don’t know
what to do with the child. It is difficult to put down one’s foot and say
you ought not to know this or that or the other. Each thing in itself is
harmless enough, but it is a little distressing to have a child who is
always peering about for gossipy information.” Yes, it is tiresome, but
is not a case for despair, nor for thinking hard things of Susie,
certainly not for accepting the inevitable. Regarding this tiresome
curiosity as the defect of its quality, the mother casts about for the
quality, and, behold, Susie is reinstated. What ails the child is an
inordinate desire for knowledge, run to seed, and allowed to spend
itself on unworthy objects. When the right moment comes, introduce
Susie to some delightful study, of Nature, for example, which will
employ all her prying proclivities. Once the new idea has taken
possession of the little girl, a little talk should follow about the
unworthiness of filling one’s thoughts with trifling matters so that
nothing really interesting can get in. For weeks together see that
Susie’s mind is too full of large matters to entertain the small ones;
and, once the inquisitive habit has been checked, encourage the
child’s active mind to definite progressive work on things worth while.
Susie’s unworthy curiosity will soon cease to be a trial to her parents.
 CHAPTER XVII

SENSATIONS AND FEELINGS

Part I
Children whose parents have little theoretic knowledge of the
values of the various food-stuffs are often thoroughly nourished; their
parents rely on what they call common-sense; and the result is, on
the whole, better than if scientific consideration were given to the
family dietary. But this common-sense has usually scientific opinion
for its basis, though the fact may be forgotten, and when scientific
opinion has become the groundwork of habit it is of more value, and
works in a more simple way, than while it is still in the stage of
experiment. In the same way it is a good thing to have such an
acquaintance with the functions of human nature that we act on our
knowledge unconsciously, and do not even know that we possess it.
But if we have no such floating capital of cognisance we must study
the subject, even if we have to make experiments. Most people
suppose that the sensations, feelings, and emotions of a child are
matters that take care of themselves. Indeed, we are apt to use the
three terms indiscriminately, without attaching very clear ideas to
them. But they cover, collectively, a very important educational field;
and though common sense, that is to say judgments formed upon
inherited knowledge, often helps us to act wisely without knowing
why, we shall probably act more wisely if we act reasonably.
Let us consider, first, the subject of sensations. We speak of
sensations of cold, and sensations of heat, and sensations of pain,
and we are quite right. We also speak of sensations of fear and
sensations of pleasure, and we are commonly wrong. The
sensations have their origin in impressions received by the several
organs of sense—eye, tongue, nostrils, ear, the surface of the
external skin—and are conveyed by the sensory nerves, some to the
spinal cord and some to the lower region of the brain. Many
sensations we know nothing about; when we become aware of our
sensations it is because communications are sent by nerve fibres,
acting as telegraph wires, from the sensorium to the thinking brain,
and this happens when we give our attention to any one of the
multitudinous messages carried by the sensory nerves. The
physiology of the senses is too complicated a subject for us to touch
upon here, but it is deeply interesting, and perhaps no better
introduction exists than Professor Clifford’s little book, “Seeing and
Thinking” (Macmillan). Now the senses are “The Five Gateways of
Knowledge,” to quote the title of a little book which many of us have
used in early days; and an intelligent person should be aware of, and
capable of forming judgments upon, the sensations he receives.
We all recognise that the training of the senses is an important
part of education. One caution is necessary: from the very first a
child’s sensations should be treated as matters of objective and not
of subjective interest. Marmalade, for example, is interesting, not
because it is “nice”—a fact not to be dwelt upon at all—but because
one can discern in it different flavours and the modifying effect of the
oil secreted in the rind of the orange. We shall have occasion to
speak more of this subject later; but a useful piece of education is
this of centering a child’s interest in the objects which produce his
sensations and not in himself as the receiver of these sensations.
The purpose of so-called object lessons is, to assist a child, by
careful examination of a given object, to find out all he can about it
through the use of his several senses. General information about the
object is thrown in and lodges only because the child’s senses have
been exercised, and his interest aroused. Object lessons are a little
in disfavour, just now, for two reasons. In the first place, miserable
fragments are presented to the children which have little of the
character of the object in situ, and are apt to convey inadequate, if
not wrong, ideas. In the next place, object lessons are commonly
used as a means to introduce children to hard words, such as
opaque and translucent, which never become part of their living
thought until they pick them up for themselves incidentally as they
have need of them. But the abuse of this kind of teaching should not
cause us to overlook its use. No child can grow up without daily
object teaching, whether casual or of set purpose, and the more
thorough this is the more intelligent and observant will he become. It
is singular how few people are capable of developing an intelligent
curiosity about the most attractive objects, except as their interest is
stimulated from without. The baby is a wonderful teacher in this
matter of object lessons. To be sure his single pupil is his own small
self, but his progress is amazing. At first he does not see any
difference between a picture of a cow and the living animal; big and
little, far and near, hard and soft, hot and cold, are all alike to him; he
wishes to hold the moon in his pinafore, to sit on the pond, to poke
his finger into the candle, not because he is a foolish little person,
but because he is profoundly ignorant of the nature of the contents of
this unintelligible world. But how he works! he bangs his spoon to try
if it produces sound; he sucks it to try its flavour; he fumbles it all
over and no doubt finds out whether it is hard or soft, hot or cold,
rough or smooth; he gazes at it with the long gaze of infancy, so that
he may learn the look of it; it is an old friend and an object of desire
when he sees it again, for he has found out that there is much joy in
a spoon. This goes on with great diligence for a couple of years, at
the end of which time baby has acquired enough knowledge of the
world to conduct himself in a very dignified and rational way.
This is what happens under Nature’s teaching; and for the first
five or six years of his life everything, especially everything in action,
is an object of intelligent curiosity to the child—the street or the field
is a panorama of delight, the shepherd’s dog, the baker’s cart, the
man with the barrow, are full of vivid interest. He has a thousand
questions to ask, he wants to know about everything; he has, in fact,
an inordinate appetite for knowledge. We soon cure all that: we
occupy him with books instead of things; we evoke other desires in
place of the desire to know; and we succeed in bringing up the
unobservant man (and more unobservant woman), who discerns no
difference between an elm, a poplar and a lime tree, and misses
very much of the joy of living. By the way, why is it that the baby
does not exercise with purpose his organ of smell? He screws up a
funny little nose when he is taught to sniff at a flower, but this is a
mere trick; he does not naturally make experiments as to whether
things are odorous, while each of his other senses affords him keen
joy. No doubt the little nose is involuntarily very active, but can his
inertness in this matter be an hereditary failing? It may be that we all
allow ourselves to go about with obtuse nostrils. If so, this is a matter
for the attention of mothers, who should bring up their children not
only to receive, which is involuntary and vague, but to perceive
odours from the first.
Two points call for our attention in this education of the senses;
we must assist the child to educate himself on Nature’s lines, and we
must take care not to supplant and crowd out Nature and her
methods with that which we call education. Object lessons should be
incidental; and this is where the family enjoys so great an advantage
over the school. It is almost impossible that the school should give
any but set lessons, but this sort of teaching in the family falls in with
the occurrence of the object. The child who finds that wonderful and
beautiful object, a “paper” wasp’s nest, attached to a larch-twig, has
his object lesson on the spot from father or mother. The grey colour,
the round symmetrical shape, the sort of cup and ball arrangement,
the papery texture, the comparative size, the comparative
smoothness, the odour or lack of odour, the extreme lightness, the
fact that it is not cold to the touch. These and fifty other particulars
the child finds out unaided, or with no more than a word, here and
there, to direct his observation. One does not every day find a
wasp’s nest, but much can be got out of every common object, and
the commoner the better, which falls naturally under the child’s
observation, a piece of bread, a lump of coal, a sponge. In the first
place it is unnecessary in the family to give an exhaustive
examination to every object; one quality might be discussed in this,
another quality in that. We eat our bread and milk and notice that
bread is absorbent, and we overhaul our experience to discover
other things which we know to be absorbent also, and we do what
we can to compare these things as to whether they are less
absorbent or more absorbent than bread. This is exceedingly
important: the unobservant person states that an object is light and
considers that he has stated an ultimate fact: the observant person
makes the same statement, but has in his mind a relative scale, and
his judgment is of the more value because he compares it silently
with a series of substances to which this is relatively light. It is
important that children should learn to recognise that high, low,
sweet, bitter, long, short, agreeable, &c., &c., are comparative terms,
while square, round, black, white, are positive terms, the application
of which is not affected by comparison with other objects. Care in
this matter makes for higher moral, as well as intellectual
development: half the dissensions in the world arise from an
indiscriminate use of epithets. “Would you say your bread (at dinner)
was light or heavy?” The child would probably answer, “rather light.”
“Yes, we can only say that a thing is light by comparing it with others;
what is bread light compared with?” “A stone, a piece of coal, of
cheese, of butter of the same size.” “But it is heavy compared with?”
“A piece of sponge cake, a piece of sponge, of cork, of pumice,” and
so on. “What do you think it weighs?” “An ounce, an ounce and a
half.” “We’ll try after dinner; you had better have another piece and
save it,” and the weighing after dinner is a delightful operation. The
power of judging of weight is worth cultivating. We heard the other
day of a gentleman who was required at a bazaar to guess the
weight of a monster cake; he said it weighed twenty-eight pounds
fourteen ounces, and it did, exactly. Cæteris paribus, one has a
greater respect for the man who made this accurate judgment than
for the well-intentioned but vague person, who suggested that the
cake might weigh ten pounds. Letters, book parcels, an apple, an
orange, a vegetable marrow, fifty things in the course of the day give
opportunities for this kind of object teaching, i.e., the power of
forming accurate judgments as to the relative and absolute weight of
objects by their resistance, which is perceived by our sense of touch,
though opposed to our muscular force. By degrees the children are
trained to perceive that the relative weights of objects depend upon
their relative density, and are introduced to the fact that we have a
standard of weight.
In the same way children should be taught to measure objects by
the eye. How high is that candlestick? How long and broad that
picture-frame? and so on—verifying their statements. What is the
circumference of that bowl? of the clock-face? of that flower-bed?
How tall is so-and-so, and so-and-so? How many hands high are the
horses of their acquaintance? Divide a slip of wood, a sheet of paper
into halves, thirds, quarters by the eye; lay a walking-stick at right
angles with another; detect when a picture, curtain, &c., hangs out of
the perpendicular. This sort of practice will secure for children what is
called a correct or true eye.
A quick and true ear is another possession that does not come by
Nature, or anyway, if it does, it is too often lost. How many sounds
can you distinguish in a sudden silence out of doors? Let these be
named in order from the less to the more acute. Let the notes of the
birds be distinguished, both call-notes and song-notes; the four or
five distinct sounds to be heard in the flow of a brook. Cultivate
accuracy in distinguishing footfalls and voices; in discerning, with
their eyes shut, the direction from which a sound proceeds, in which
footsteps are moving. Distinguish passing vehicles by their sounds;
as lorry, brougham, dog-cart. Music is, no doubt, the instrument par
excellence for this kind of ear culture. Mrs. Curwen’s “Child Pianist”
puts carefully graduated means for this kind of culture into the hands
of parents; and, if a child never become a performer, to have
acquired a cultivated and correct ear is no small part of a musical
education.
We do not attach enough importance to the discrimination of
odours, whether as a safeguard to health, or as a source of
pleasure. Half the people one knows have nostrils which register no
difference between the atmosphere of a large, and so-called “airy,”
room, whose windows are never opened, and that of a room in which
a through current of air is arranged for at frequent intervals: and yet
health depends largely on a delicate perception as to the purity of
the atmosphere. The odours which result in diphtheria or typhoid are
perceptible, however faint, and a nose trained to detect the faintest
malodorous particles in food, clothing, or dwelling, is a panoply
against disease to the possessor.
Then, odours enter more readily than other sense perceptions
into those—
“Sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,”
 , g ,

which add so much to the sum of our happiness, because they unite
themselves so readily with our purely incorporeal joys by links of
association. “I never smell woodruff without being reminded——” is
the sort of thing we hear and say continually, but we do not trouble
ourselves to realise that we owe a double joy to the odour of the
woodruff (or it may be, alas! a reflected sorrow)—the joy of the
pleasant influences about us when we pluck the flower, and the
possibly more personal joy of that other time with which we
associate it. Every new odour perceived is a source, if not of
warning, of recurrent satisfaction or interest. We are acquainted with
too few of the odours which the spring-time offers. Only this spring
the present writer learned two peculiarly delightful odours quite new
to her, that of young larch twigs, which have much the same kind
and degree of fragrance as the flower of the syringa, and the
pleasant musky aroma of a box-hedge. Children should be trained,
for example, to shut their eyes when they come into the drawing-
room and discover by their nostrils what odorous flowers are
present, should discriminate the garden odours let loose by a shower
of rain:—
“Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it.
* * * * *
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is
odourless,
It is for my mouth for ever, I am in love with it.
* * * * *
The sniff of green leaves, and dry leaves, and of the shore, and dark-
coloured sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn.”

—The American poet has, perhaps, done more than any other to
express the pleasure to be found in odours. This is one direction in
which much remains to be done; we have not yet arrived even at a
scale of odours, as of sound and of colour.
Flavour, again, offers a wide range for delicate discrimination. At
first sight it would appear difficult to cultivate the sense of flavour
without making a child more or less of a gourmand, but the fact is,
that the strong flavours which titillate the palate destroy the power of
perception. The young child who lives upon milk-foods has, probably,
more pleasure in flavour than the diner-out who is au fait with the
confections of a cordon bleu. At the same time, one would prefer to
make flavour a source of interest rather than of sensuous pleasure to
children: it is better that they should try to discern a flavour with their
eyes shut, for example, than that they should be allowed to think or
say that things are “nice” or “nasty.” This sort of fastidiousness
should be cried down. It is not well to make a child eat what he does
not like, as that would only make him dislike that particular dish
always; but to let him feel that he shows a want of self-control and
manliness when he expresses distaste for wholesome food is likely
to have a lasting effect.
We have barely touched on the sorts of object lessons, appealing
now to one sense and now to another, which should come
incidentally every day in the family. We are apt to regard an
American Indian as a quite uneducated person; he is, on the
contrary, highly educated in so far as that he is able to discriminate
sensory impressions, and to take action upon these in a way which
is bewildering to the book-learned European. It would be well for
parents to educate a child, for the first half-dozen years of his life at
any rate, on “Red Indian” lines. Besides the few points we have
mentioned, he should be able to discriminate colours and shades of
colour; relative degrees of heat in woollen, wood, iron, marble, ice;
should learn the use of the thermometer; should discriminate objects
according to their degrees of hardness; should have a cultivated eye
and touch for texture; should, in fact, be able to get as much
information about an object from a few minutes’ study, as to its form,
colour, texture, size, weight, qualities, parts, characteristics, as he
could learn out of many pages of a printed book. We approach the
subject by the avenue of the child’s senses rather than by that of the
objects to be studied, because just now we have in view the
occasional test exercises, the purpose of which is to give thorough
culture to the several senses. An acquaintance with nature and
natural objects is another thing, and is to be approached in a slightly
different way. A boy who is observing a beetle does not consciously
apply his several senses to the beetle, but lets the beetle take the
initiative, which the boy reverently follows: but the boy who is in the
habit of doing daily sensory gymnastics will learn a great deal more
about the beetle than he who is not so trained.
Definite object lessons differ from these incidental exercises in
that an object is in a manner exhausted by each of the senses in turn
and every atom of information it will yield got out of it. A good plan is
to make this sort of a lesson a game, pass your object round—piece
of bread, for example—and let each child tell some fact that he
discovers by touch, another round by smell, again by taste, and
again by sight. Children are most ingenious in this kind of game, and
it affords opportunities to give them new words, as friable, elastic,
when they really ask to be helped to express some discovery they
have made. The children learn to think with exactitude too, to
distinguish between friable and brittle, for example, and any common
information that is offered to them in the course of these exercises
becomes a possession for ever. A good game in the nature of an
object lesson, suitable for a birthday party, is to have a hundred
small objects arranged on a table, unknown to the children, then lead
the little party into the room, allow them three minutes to walk round
the table, and then, when they have left the room, let them write, or
tell in a corner, the names of all the objects they recollect. Some
children will easily get fifty or sixty.
No doubt the best and happiest exercise of the senses springs
out of a loving familiarity with the world of nature, but the sorts of
gymnastics we have indicated render the perceptions more acute
and are greatly enjoyed by children. That the sensations should not
be permitted to minister unduly to the subjective consciousness of
the child is the great point to be borne in mind.
 CHAPTER XVIII

SENSATIONS AND FEELINGS

Part II

“These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.”
—W. Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey.

Insight—the so to speak scientific grip of a great poet—is amongst

those “more things” in heaven and earth than our philosophy has
dreamed of. Wordsworth tells us that after the lapse of years, these
beauteous forms (of Tintern Abbey) gave him sensations. Now we
are apt to think that sensations can only be immediate, perceived on
the instant that the object is present to the senses; but the poet is, as
usual, absolutely right: we may have, so to speak, reflected
sensations, as well as those that are immediate, because a
conscious sensation depends upon the recognition of an impression
in the sensory centres, and this recognition may be evoked, not only
by a repeated sensation, but by an association which recalls the